


Beer and Friends, or The Story of How Desmond Miles Got His Scar

by kenwaylights



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alcohol, Bar Room Brawl, Blood, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, creepy dude in a bar, for the student not for Desmond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 02:43:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4547139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenwaylights/pseuds/kenwaylights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A college kid comes into Bad Weather to celebrate turning 21. A creepy guy tries to make unwanted moves. Desmond doesn’t tolerate that.</p><p>[References my fic <i>You Ain’t No Saint,</i> which is not yet posted, but you don’t need to read it to be able to understand.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beer and Friends, or The Story of How Desmond Miles Got His Scar

The bass is boosted enough to penetrate the skull and muffle the thoughts. That’s just the way he likes it.

Desmond Miles is pushing back his sleeves up to his elbows and rubbing his palms together in preparation as he steps behind the bar. His shift has begun.

“Hi! What can I getcha?” he asks a light brown-skinned college kid who is tripping over people’s feet, their friends in tow, toward him.

“Rum and coke for me!” pipes up the petite friend with dark skin and blonde and pink hair standing beside the other student.

“Um, what’s good here?” they inquire softly after their friends receive their drinks.

“What’s that?” Desmond responds, nearly shouting.

“I said, ‘What’s good here?’”

“Depends on whatcha like. What’s your usual choice?”

“I dunno, I’ve never drank before. Yesterday was my twenty-first birthday, but I had a lot of studying to do, so we had to wait to celebrate till tonight,” the student admits sheepishly.

Desmond grins knowingly. “Alright, let’s start ya off with somethin’ easy. You come let me know how that’s treating you when you’re done. Sip it slow and pace yourself, kid.”

“You’re not that much older than me!” they protest with a bit of a blush.

“Nah, you’re right, but I’m way more experienced!” replies Desmond in a singsong voice as he grabs a simple beer. He jerks his hand back slightly to ask, “Hey, have you eaten anything tonight?”

“Yeah, I had, like, three and a half slices of pizza.”

“How long ago?”

He shrugs. “‘Bout… A quarter of an hour ago?”

“Good.” Desmond hands over the bottle. “You’ll have a way shittier time if you’re drinkin’ on an empty stomach.” He realises then that the group abandoned the birthday kid. “Wait, where’d your friends go?”

They look around. “Ah… _Shit_. Um, I’ll find ‘em.”

“Stay safe, kiddo.” He turns to another new customer. “Hi, what can I getcha?”

 

It’s nearly two in the morning now. The previous crowd had mostly cleared out and a new one had entered in its place. He kept an eye out for that college student and their friends. At the back of his mind, he notes that he’s still using neutral pronouns. Something Tess made sure was ground into his skull for certain back at the Farm. He chuckled at the memories before they became more than slightly painful and he repressed them again.

Suddenly a hypermasculine dude, probably a couple years older than Desmond himself, comes up to the bar with that kid. Their eyes are trained on the ground and darting about wildly. Somebody’d given them more to drink than Desmond had given them, meaning this Macho Man had friends in here, because Desmond had never seen him come up to the bar before. But he should’ve kept track of how many drinks that one guy in the “Make Me a Sandwich” shirt had been taking, because it was a lot. _Mother fuckin’..._

“Two Jungle Juices,” barks the guy.

Desmond eyes him suspiciously. _First of all, Jungle Juice is_ way _too heavy for a first-time drinker. Second of all, this asshole is a definite creep,_ he thought. _Okay, Desmond, you got this. Play it safe for the kid’s sake._

He mixes the drinks and sets them down, but keeps his hand on one of them, ducking his head to try and make eye contact with the student. “Hey, you okay? Where’s your group?” he asks, a bit quieter than usual.

“Uhhh… I think they left…”

_God fuckin’ dammit, they’re intoxicated. Alright, Miles, get it together, you got this._

The only time he’d ever had to deal with a predatorial male before was when he was first starting out and he saw a guy try and roofie some innocent girl, but Desmond had swapped the glasses around before the girl had taken her first sip and then called the cops.

A quick scan of the crowd confirms the statement that the other students had left. Real great friends they are. “You don’t look so good, kid.”

“She looks fine,” growls the WWE wannabe.

“Hey, Jackie!” Desmond yells toward the other end of the bar.

Jackie, his coworker, dries her hands and pushes a strand of hair out of her face. “What’s up, Des?”

“Cover for me for a minute.”

“Sure thing.” Immediately picking up on the situation (as she’d had to deal with it firsthand on many occasions previously), she begins engaging the big dude in conversation.

Desmond hauls ass around the bar and makes his way toward the young patron. “C’mon, I’m calling you a cab.” Holding them up by the shoulders, he escorts them out of the congested bar and out onto the sidewalk.

He had just hung up with the cab company when someone grabbed him from behind and a heavily ringed hand punched him square in the mouth.

“What the _fuck_ , man?!” Desmond snaps, not realising that it’s the mega-douche from before. “God dammit…”

“I could say the same to you! The hell you playin’ at, you fuckin’ cockblock?”

“Hey, that’s rape, asshole. Neither of you can consent, you’re both drunk as fuck.”

The creep nearly strikes again, but Desmond is ready this time. He ducks and effectively lands a punch of his own, which hits the guy’s gut pretty hard.

His mouth is bleeding, he can taste it. He tries to wipe it away, but it’s too much for that to handle. He turns back to the young patron.

“Hi, I’m Desmond. ‘He’ and ‘him’ pronouns.” He holds out his non-bloodied hand for them to shake. Tess had taught him that, too. _Never assume anything about anyone, not even pronouns,_ they’d said. _Just ask. It’s proper manners. Clarify yours while you’re at it so you’re on the same page._

They sniff. “Ronnie. ‘She’ and ‘her’ work just fine, thanks for asking.” She shakes his hand before tucking both of hers into her sweater sleeves. “Nobody ever does.”

“No shit? I knew a girl named Ronnie when I was a kid.” He smiles weakly. “But my, uh… A friend of mine made sure I always knew to ask for pronouns first.”

“Were they trans*?”

“Yeah. Nonbinary of some sort, I didn’t see ‘em again before they finally figured it all out.”

“Mm… Your mouth is bleeding.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“You gonna be okay?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve had worse. Trust me.”

She lifts a brow at him. “Anyway, thanks for pulling me outta there. I don’t even wanna think about what could’ve happened.”

“No problem.”

“You say that as if you didn’t almost get your ass handed to you. By the way, that’s probably gonna scar.”

“You think so?” It’s only partly sarcastic.

“Dude. You don’t even have to be a med student to know that. I mean, I am, but it’s pretty clear. The guy was wearing sharp rings and that’s bleeding a lot — are you sure you don’t need medical attention? I think you should—”

“Ronnie, I’ll be fine. Promise. Now, here’s your cab. Go home. Also, your friends suck.”

“Oh, they’re not even my friends. The girl with the pink highlights is my roommate and she heard my mom call me on my birthday, so that’s how we ended up here.”

He snorts. “Well, pick out some not-so-sucky friends soon, ‘kay?”

Ronnie pulls the car door shut behind her. “‘Kay.”

Desmond watches the cab pull away. It rounds the corner and is out of sight in a matter of moments.

“ _Wow_ , that blood tastes bad!”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I firmly believe these things about Desmond, among a few others:
> 
> 1.) He loves Justin Timberlake  
> 2.) He’s a complete feminist  
> 3.) He looks out for his patrons
> 
> No one will ever, ever change my mind about these headcanons.
> 
>  
> 
> E V E R .


End file.
